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Bay Guardian contributor Chris Sabbath recently talked to Junior Boys in anticipation of their Sept. 26 show at Bottom of the Hill.

So This Is Goodbye (Domino), the new album from Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus of the Junior Boys, finds the duo getting their signature blend of seductive pop and bubbling electronica that started on 2004’s Last Exit (Domino) down to a science. Read more »

Guardian contributor Chris Sabbath weighs in on the recent Tortoise show on Sept. 14 at Great American Music Hall:

Being a late bloomer in the whole Chicago post-rock department, I didn’t actually get around to hearing Tortoise’s eclectic jazz-prog-electronic post-whatevers until my early 20s. That being said, I went Thrill Jockey crazy for a summer -- endlessly stockpiling my college apartment with albums by such label staples as Mouse on Mars, Trains Am, and Oval. Read more »

Is it really $40 to go see the Human League at Red Devil Lounge? Retro hipsters start saving up now! Here's new intern Chris Cooney's brief, decidedly non-retro hipster take on the event.

I invented a new stupid-pet trick: ask 10 of your friends to tell you something about the Human League, and nine of them will start singing, “Don’t you want me Baby? Don’t you want me ohhhhh!” It’s adorable.

Taxes, zits, and coffee breath - these things are eternal. Add to that list "Rock 'n' Roll Bingo" at Blankspace in Oakland on Sept. 1. This third installment of the Oakland Art Murmur event featured the Bay's winning bro-duo Moore Brothers and Santa Cruz chamber-goofers Antarctica Takes It (Bookends canceled, shoot). Most amazing - this writer took home an awesome prize (a fine alternative to the unicorn thrift scores): a tote bag design original by artist Tonya Solley Thornton. Bingo, indeed. Read more »

The noses were small, the dresses were expensive, the Mayor was in attendance, and the music was sublime. Yep, I crashed the annual SF Symphony Opening Gala, chockful o' Zellerbachs, Wilseys, DuPonts and whomever else rich-like, and lived to blog all about it (despite being almost kicked out for yodeling during the singing of the National Anthem, ahem.)

Vashti Bunyan is giving a concert at Great American Music Hall this week. To give an idea of how rare this event is, Bunyan has played fewer shows here than she has released albums, and she’s released exactly two long song collections: 1970’s justifiably adored Just Another Diamond Day and last year’s equally exquisite Lookaftering. Read more »

Meant to blog a while back on a stack of records I’ve picked up recently. I’m only going to write about a few. I don’t articulate myself very well when it comes to music. I’m a reporter. But these records, I thought, deserved a mention. Below the jump is a list of the others.

5ive
“Versus”
(Tortuga Recordings)
Tortuga is a blood relative of L.A.’s Hydrahead Records (formerly of Boston) created several years ago by the singer of Isis, Aaron Turner. Read more »

May I just say that Memphis band Snowglobe's second full-length, Doing the Distance (Makeshift), out earlier this year, is one of the finest unhyped sleeper-type recordings of 2006 thus far? Hip-hip-hooray for weird, whirling orchestral prog-pop by musicians who obviously listened to far too much AM pop in the '70s.

Where have these guys been all our lives? Why haven't they played here? Read more »